Share this:

Like this:

Vygies – or mesembryanthemums – are truly South Africa’s most colourful plant group. Their silky-textured flowers – in just about every colour of the rainbow – will give an extraordinary luminosity to any border. With more than 1 800 species from which to choose, whatever your taste in plants and garden design, there will be a vygie to suit your fancy.

The widely used Afrikaans name vygie – which literally means ‘small fig’ – is based on the fact that the top-like fruiting capsule also resembles a small fig. The best know spring-flowering vygies are the Drosanthemum, Delosperma and Lampranthus species. They include many small shrub-like plants as well as groundcovers, and have an enormous range of flower colours.

Lampranthus species have smooth leaves, and large, shiny flowers. Delospermaspecies have conspicuous seed compartments, whilst the leaves of Drosanthemum species differ from those above because of their dew-like shiny cells on the epidermis – hence their common name, ice plant.
The Livingstone daisy or Bokbaai vygie (Dorotheanthus bellidiformis) and yellow-bloomed vetkousie (Carpanthea pomeridiana ‘Golda’) are also spring-flowering but as they are both annuals, their seeds must be sown in autumn.

“The rules of Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge require you to post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo (It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or simply a short paragraph) and then nominate another blogger to carry on this challenge. Accepting the challenge is entirely up to the person nominated, it is not a command.”

This is the final day of this challenge and I would like any one that would like to join in this great challenge to do so!

Grey heron, Bloureier [Afrikaans]

It generally favours shallow water bodies, such as estuaries, lagoons, rivers, lakes, marshes and dams. It mainly eats fish, using three different hunting techniques: it can wait at one spot for prey to come within striking distance; it can walk carefully through shallow water before catching their prey, or it just drops into the water from the air.

“The rules of Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge require you to post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo (It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or simply a short paragraph) and then nominate another blogger to carry on this challenge. Accepting the challenge is entirely up to the person nominated, it is not a command.”

I would like to nominate Loreen of little learner‘s blog to join in the fun.

Just 90 minutes from Cape Town, on Route 27, is a little village, Velddrif which lies at the mouth of the Berg River. It is popular for its fishing, bird life and wild flowers. At the Velddrif Bridge is always flocks of flamingos and pelicans who use it as a base.

The distinctive pink flamingo color develops thanks to their selective diet, which primarily consists of organisms — such as shrimp and algae — high in pigments called carotenoids. These carotenoids are the same pigments that cause shrimp to turn from gray to pink when we boil them!